Ocean's Eleven
by kaIshekk
Summary: Oishi is hit by a bus. The doctor demands 50 million dollars. The Seigaku regulars decide to take drastic measures e.g. rob a bank to obtain the money. No pairings, I hope.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: Oishi is hit by a bus. The doctor demands 50 million dollars. The Seigaku regulars decide to take drastic measures (e.g. rob a bank) to obtain the money. No pairings, I hope.

Disclaimer: I do not own POT. My Japanese sucks.

* * *

Oishi Syuichiroh was fourteen years old, male and very happy. At this moment he loved the world. He was going to meet his friends from his school tennis club to celebrate their recent victory in an important game. He admired the way the evening sky seemed to be composed of many interesting colors, he enjoyed the cool wind on his face as he walked, and he smiled at the children who were riding their tricycles and wielding their toy light sabers by the street. 

This has been a happy beginning. Due to the fact that I am a sadistic freak who cannot bring myself to write whole pages of happy things, the existence of a happy beginning can only mean that something terrible will happen to compensate.

Therefore, Oishi Syuichiroh, fourteen, male and happy, was hit by a bus.

The bus driver was a certain Mr. Yamada, who was too obsessed with his own thoughts to notice that he had hit someone and went on driving, dragging Oishi along, totally oblivious to the screams of passers-by. Mr. Yamada had recently lost his suicidal wife and was very unhappy. The late Mrs. Yamada had tried several methods of suicide and finally succeeded in her last attempt. She was my favorite OC, but we can all see that she couldn't be a Mary Sue because she was a) married and b) dead. But I shouldn't say too much about the Yamadas because they don't really matter at all in this story.

Oishi would have been dragged along under the bus tires all the way to wherever Mr. Yamada was going if our superhero Spiderman had not appeared on the spot and landed on Mr. Yamada's windshield. Mr. Yamada was so shocked by the sudden presence of a red-and-blue person that he came back to his senses and stopped the car. Some old ladies who happened to be passing by phoned for an ambulance.

"Thanks! You are my hero!" Oishi breathlessly thanked Spiderman.

"Aw, you're welcome! Got to go. I've got a new movie coming soon! Come see me at the theaters!" Spiderman said and took his leave.

The above of course did not happen. First, Spiderman did not live in Japan. And second, do you actually believe that Oishi would be able to talk at all after being hit by a bus and dragged along for some 40 meters?

And that was the reason why the remaining Seigaku tennis club regulars spent a whole hour waiting for Oishi to appear but of no avail.

"I'm HUNGRY!!" complained Momo, who was always hungry.

"When have you ever been NOT hungry?" Kaidoh murmured. Of course, Momo heard him.

"What did you say? Wanna fight?" Momo yelled because he is always in fighting mood when he is hungry. Which means that he is always in fighting mood. Kaidoh muttered something in reply, but no one heard him because at that moment an ambulance sped by, its siren blaring.

"I wonder why when the ambulance passes you the pitch of the siren changes?" Kikumaru said curiously.

"Hey, I've been wondering too. I thought I was the only one that noticed this strange phenomenon!" Momo exclaimed excitedly and they exchanged high-fives because they were so smart and observant.

"But Oishi is really very late. He's never been late for such a long time before." Kawamura said thoughtfully, "In fact, I'm pretty sure that he's never been late AT ALL."

"I'll call him!" Kikumaru offered. He dialed Oishi's cell phone number and screamed into the receiver.

"HEYYYY Oishi! Oh wait, who are you?" Because it wasn't Oishi who picked up. In fact, it was a girl's voice that answered. "And why are you answering Oishi's phone?"

"Well actually he is beside me right now…" the girl began.

"Oh wow! A date!"Kikumaru concluded happily. "It's good that he's got a date! But he should have told us beforehand so we wouldn't have to wait here like idiots. Can I speak to him?"

And he was all ready to give Oishi a piece of his mind because even though he had a date it doesn't mean that he could ditch his friends, when the girl said, "But he can't come to the phone. He's in bed."

Oishi! In bed!!

This shocked Kikumaru so much that he threw his cell phone into the sky. Well, yeah, in some fanfics Oishi is supposed to be good in bed, but still…no, Kikumaru just couldn't tolerate the idea of Oishi in bed.

"What happened?" Momo demanded, because it was just too unnatural to throw your cell phone into the sky. Cell phones are expensive. Luckily Kikumaru had good reflexes so he caught his cell phone before it hit the floor and ended the call.

"Oishi is in bed! With a girl!" Kikumaru announced in reply to Momo's question.

"In bed!" Momo said admiringly. "Wow! I would never have guessed!"

"Are you _sure_?" said Ryoma, who was pretty practical.

"Of course I'm sure! The girl told me herself."

"But he never told us that he had a girlfriend or anything…" Kawamura said in confusion.

Kikumaru nodded vigorously, "Yeah! He ought to tell me…WAAAAAAHHHH!" the first part of the sentence was because he considered Oishi a good friend and the second part was because his cell phone rang again.

"I'm so _not_ picking this up!"Kikumaru wailed, "Buchou, you take it!" and tossed his still ringing cell phone to Tezuka, who sighed and picked it up.

"Hello?"

And the change of expression on his face was so dramatic that everyone stopped whatever they were doing to stare. The fact that Tezuka rarely changed his expression at all made this even more dramatic.

"What? Oh, I see. Yes. Yes. Okay. We'll be there as soon as we can. Thank you for calling." And with that Tezuka hung up.

"Must be some frightfully shocking news for Buchou to turn so pale in seconds. Maybe the girl is pregnant. Or maybe Oishi-senpai is pregnant. I prefer the latter." Momo remarked to himself. He dared not say it out loud because he valued his life.

Tezuka turned to his club members, who were all looking at him expectantly. He paused for a moment and finally explained with a grave look, "That girl was a hospital nurse. Oishi was hit by a bus. They don't expect him to live."

"WHATTT? YOU MUST BE KIDDING!" Momo shouted, grabbing Tezuka by the shoulders and shaking him violently. In his frustration he forgot that shaking Tezuka violently is dangerous, but this was one of the rare occasions on which that Tezuka did not seem to mind.

"I'm not kidding." Tezuka said softly. "come on, let's go to the hospital."

And they all headed towards the subway.

* * *

I am Chinese, not a native speaker and totally new here, so I'm still a bit confused. A friend told me about this site and I sort of got hooked and decided to try translating some of my fanfics from Chinese into English. Please excuse grammar errors if they are not too outrageous. I will be very happy if you reviewed! Thank you!!: ) 


	2. Chapter 2

I'm still not quite familiar with how to use everything. So please excuse any mistakes!: )

* * *

Outside the hospital emergency room stood a very distressed Kikumaru, cell phone in hand. Inui had suggested that he call Oishi's parents, which he did, but the instant Oishi's father answered the phone Kikumaru discovered that he just couldn't tell him. 

"Yes? You are Eiji, right? Haven't you guys got a celebratory dinner tonight?"

"Um…Mr…Mr. Oishi…I…he…um…Oh I can't do this!" and he turned to Fuji with large pleading eyes. Oishi's dad was a nice person, which made telling him that his son was hit by a bus and half dead more difficult than it already was.

"Okay, I'll tell him." Fuji obliged and took Kikumaru's cell phone. "Hello, Mr. Oishi?"

"Be sure to break the news gently."Tezuka warned in a whisper. Fuji nodded.

"Mr. Oishi? Your son…"

"Yes?My son?"

"YOUR SON IS HIT BY A BUS AND DRAGGED ALONG FOR FORTY FEET AND HIS BODY IS IN PIECES YOU CAN EVEN SEE HIS ENTRAILS AND THE DOCTORS SAY HE'S DEFINITELY GONNA DIE IN SEVEN DAYS! YAY!!" Fuji screamed. No, he did not say "Yay", because that would have been too mean.

"WHATTT?"Oishi's dad screamed in turn.

"I said break the news gently!" Tezuka said in dismay. "And that was not gentle at all!"

"You should totally leave the entrails part out!" Kikumaru cried. "Oh I'd much rather Oishi was in bed with a girl!"

"My son…in bed…with a girl?" said Oishi's dad, who was getting more confused by the minute.

"No, your son is hit by a bus! The girl is the nurse!" Kawamura tried to explain, which only made matters worse.

"My son is hit by a bus and you can see his entrails in bed with a nurse?" said Oishi's dad, who was so confused that he broke down and began to cry.

Tezuka sighed deeply and took over, explaining everything to Oishi's dad in perfect detail. He should have been the one that called in the first place.

Still, Fuji was quite right about the entrails part. Oishi was really in terrible condition. He was in such a bloody mess that Momo, after just a slight glance at his body, ran bawling hysterically to the men's room. He was crying his heart out when he noticed suddenly that someone else was crying his heart out in the men's room too. He discovered that it was Kaidoh and, despite the fact that they were sworn enemies, they threw their arms around each other and wept to their heart's content.

"The younger generation nowadays…" an elderly man sighed as he watched the two hugging and crying, "…Too many homosexuals, there are. No, not like the good old times at all." But nobody cared about the elderly man because he's just an unimportant character that would never appear again anyway.

Ryoma, meanwhile, not being like Momo and Kaidoh who wore their hearts on their sleeves, was apparently more calm and composed. He approached a doctor, who had just emerged from the emergency room, to ask about Oishi's current condition. The doctor looked at Ryoma's small, pale but brave face and shook his head sadly. "No, he probably won't make it."

" I see. Thank you." Ryoma said calmly. And then he threw all his calmness and composure out of the window and ran screaming down the long corridor. He ran into Kawamura on the way, passed him a tennis racket, and they went running down the corridor together, yelling "SENTIMENTAL!!" on top of their lungs as they did.

"Is there no hope at all?" a very exhausted Tezuka murmured as he leaned against the whitewashed wall with a deep sigh.

"Well, not exactly." Said Inui, who hadn't spoken so far and surprised Tezuka because he almost forgot that Inui was there. "I guess it's time to see him."

"Him?"

"Him." Inui nodded and he pulled out a card, which Tezuka took and read out loud.

"Black Jack, the man that can cure all diseases and heal all wounds." He frowned. "How did you get to know this guy?"

"I have my methods." Inui replied calmly.

Tezuka made his decision. "Well, we'll go see him." But he couldn't help being a bit worried. Most of his teammates were rather distraught at the moment, about half of them were in hysterics, and it really didn't seem right to just leave them here…

"Don't worry, Tezuka." Fuji said with his usual smile. "I'll look after everyone."

Relief flooded through Tezuka's heart. Yes, rational, gentle Fuji would of course be capable of taking care of the others. At the precise moment Kikumaru approached Fuji with a tear-stained face too obviously wanting to be comforted, and Tezuka watched as Fuji turned his charming smile on and said soothingly, "It's going to be all right Eiji. You know Oishi will be too worried about us to go away."

Yeah, Tezuka commented to himself, Fuji was the perfect person to leave in charge in this situation.

"Of course,"Fuji continued, "if he really has to go away, he will take you with him…"

"WAAAAHHHH! I DON'T WANT TO GO WITH HIM!" Kikumaru screamed and he disappeared at the end of the corridor.

Tezuka decided to take back his previous comment.

They found Black Jack's house in a maze of small alleys in an area of the city which Tezuka had always thought was uninhibited. It could hardly be called a house, as it was built with loose boards and consisted of only one tiny room, dimly lit by an oil lantern. The silhouette of a man can be seen through the door. His face seemed to be benevolent, sympathetic and wise, and Tezuka decided by first glance that this was a doctor that deserved respect.

"What can I do for you?" came the deep voice of the doctor from inside.

Inui cleared his throat. "We heard that you can heal all wounds, and we came to ask you to help our friend." He produced a notebook filled with data he had collected about Oishi's present condition. Tezuka was glad that Inui was here. He was most reliable under such circumstances.

"Hmm." Black Jack skimmed through the notes and mulled it over. Suddenly he pushed back his chair and stood up, decision made. "Okay. Leave it all to me."

Surprised that it had been so easy, Tezuka began to thank the famous doctor but stopped short as he continued. "I want 50 million dollars in cash. Bring it to me in a week's time."

Tezuka's mouth would have been hanging open if he hadn't been Tezuka. He finally managed to utter, " But I thought…you were supposed to be a…charitable doctor…like Schweizer…"

"I've got to survive, you know. Money's everything."the doctor muttered as he sank back into his chair and went on watching his baseball game. "Oh…yay!! Home run!!"

And he threw his beer bottles at the television set because he was so happy.

Tezuka swore to himself not to believe that there are charitable doctors in the world ever again.

* * *

Black Jack. / A character in a Japanese manga by Tezuka Osamushi. He is a great doctor. He has black hair with a white streak, or white hair with a black streak, I forgot which. He actually lives in a big mansion and has quite enough money, but I figured that a big mansion on the hill will be a bit too happy for the gloomy circumstances, so I moved him. I do not own him. 

Please R&R! I will be very happy!


	3. Chapter 3

I'm still a bit confused about English Internet slang. I am wondering why a Mary Sue is called a Mary Sue. But this is really off the point. Still, I will be happy if someone can tell me the answer to that...

* * *

Tezuka and Inui returned to the hospital to discover that Oishi's parents had arrived and were talking to Fuji, who was the only person around that could speak without effort. Not wanting to leave the task of comforting the miserable parents to Fuji for fear that he would say something unsuitable, which he definitely would, Tezuka walked over and introduced himself.

Oishi's parents were indeed very sad. It seemed that his father was facing problems at his company, his mother was fired only recently, and the fact that their only son was hit by a bus was not going to help their current situation much. Patting Oishi's shaking father on the back comfortingly, Tezuka knew that it would be pretty much impossible for this unfortunate family to raise 50 million dollars at all, let alone in a week. They seem like such a nice, common, modest family. He imagined Oishi's parents borrowing money everywhere and spending their whole life to pay the debt because they would be too honest not to do so. He imagined Oishi's little sister not being able to get a proper education or a decent meal. He imagined Oishi blaming himself for all this, because he definitely would---he was the type of person that, when playing tennis, blamed himself when his serve didn't pass over the net, blamed himself when his partner's serve didn't pass over the net, even blamed himself when the opponent's serve didn't pass over the net---and he, Tezuka Kunimitsu, fourteen years old and one of the best tennis players out there, vowed silently to himself that he would not let that happen. He would do anything to help that family.

And that called for an immediate group meeting in the hospital cafeteria, which was the first place with enough tables that Tezuka could think of.

The regulars all looked rather tired and distracted, some with puffy or shadowed eyes. But they all gathered willingly to hear what their buchou had to say. He didn't say much.

"We need to make 50 million dollars in a week. Any ideas?"

"We are not of age yet, and taking part-time jobs will be illegal." Inui informed everyone.

"True. I've heard that they want part-time actors of all ages on Discovery though." Said Momo thoughtfully. "There's a show called _I Shouldn't Be Alive_ or something like that, and it's mostly about people being attacked by sharks or eaten by alligators. Not many people want to be attacked by shark or eaten by alligators so I think they pay a lot. Oughtn't we tryout for that?"

"Too dangerous. We wouldn't want to have to earn extra money to save you." Pointed out Ryoma calmly.

"I won't get hurt!" declared Momo. "I'm pretty strong!"

"Well, that's an idea." Nodded Tezuka. "I suggest that everyone go home and think it over. Perhaps we can all find something to do on TV and make some money fast. We must get 50 million dollars in a week. Understood? " He didn't know why his hands were trembling as they were. Probably he was just all worked-up.

Everyone said they understood and looked like only soldiers who were fighting another army that was a hundred times larger than theirs could look.

"Good. Then meeting dismissed. Get some sleep, everyone." Said Tezuka with a weary smile. Yes, he actually smiled. We all know that Tezuka doesn't smile under natural circumstances, but as this situation was not natural at all he had the right to smile.

And they all went home to get some sleep. They would start to work right away the next day, because Oishi was their vice-captain after all and they couldn't not have a vice-captain.

Tezuka, however, lingered around for a little longer, since he suspected that Oishi's parents would need somebody sane around as they were going crazy themselves. Through the glass pane of the door he could see Oishi's seemingly lifeless form on the operation bed. He sighed.

"Hang on. We will rock you! We will take you out to a ball game!"

No, of course he did not say that. That's so not Tezuka.

"Hang on. You will be okay in a week. I promise."

And with that he silently left the hospital.

The following afternoon found a bunch of rather discouraged guys in their club room.

"They did accept me, but there isn't any character I can play this week." Groaned Momo, who really went to tryout for the aforementioned _I Shouldn't Be Alive_.

-Flashback of Momo's interview with the casting manager-

"It's fine even if I have to play some guy ripped into shreds by a shark." Momo said to the casting manager.

"But the story this week is about a girl and her elderly father who drove a plane and crashed in the Pacific Ocean. No guys your age!" the manager pointed out.

"I can play the daughter." Stated Momo.

"Never." The casting manager refused point-blank and walked away smoking, muttering" Disgusting, the way kids are dying to be famous these days."under his breath.

-End of the flashback of Momo's interview with the casting manager-

"So you see, they don't want me this week." Momo said in exasperation.

"Me and Tezuka tried to get them to play a commercial about how Taka-san's sushi has special powers that can make you grow to 2500cm. They wouldn't accept it either." Said Fuji sadly.

"Of course they wouldn't accept that!" Ryoma rolled his eyes. "You've still got a lot to learn, Fuji senpai."

"Well, I tried to get into _America's Next Top Model_, but they wouldn't take me." Said Inui with a shrug.

"Obviously they wouldn't take you!" exclaimed Momo. "You are so not a model! Even I can see that. But didn't Eiji senpai also go with you? They might like him better…"

"Oh, they didn't take me because they want only girls." Kikumaru murmured tiredly from his corner.

Now that's a point.

"Anyway, even if they did want you, you wouldn't be able to win in a week. It's supposed to be a long competition." Said Ryoma, who knew all about the show due to the constant ranting of his dad.

"Oh, we knew that." Replied Inui, who didn't like to be wrong.

"Then why did you waste time to try for it in the first place?" Asked Ryoma as he played absent-mindedly with his tennis ball.

"Because I want to be a model!" Said Inui.

Everyone decided mutually that it's time to change the subject.

"So as far as we can see we were using the wrong method. Making money on TV is not going to work." Tezuka concluded.

"No, in fact, not all of us were rejected." Put in Inui. "I noticed this morning that they have an entirely new show on Travel&Living. My mom loves it and from my data all the women my mom's age love it too."

"What is it?" said Kikumaru curiously.

"It's called _Kaoru's Cooking Class_." Said Inui, pulling out a recording of the show he had made that morning.

"Ooooh! Kaoru's Cooking Class!!" everyone screamed, even Tezuka who doesn't scream, and they crowded around the camcorder to laugh at Kaidoh.

* * *

To be continued. Thanks for reading! Will be glad for some advice. 


	4. Chapter 4

"Still, of course, even with Kaidoh being surprisingly popular among women aged 30 to 60, we are not going to make 50 million in a week." Said Inui, typing on a calculator.

"Yes. So we need other plans. Anyone?" Tezuka printed the words "Strategy Plan" on the clubroom whiteboard.

"We can bet on horses or go gambling in Las Vegas and win big." Suggested Momo who always have all the ideas.

"No, we are not old enough, and you can' t guarantee that we will definitely win big." Inui lifted his glasses in answer to that suggestion.

"Well, how about selling homemade lemonade?" put in Kawamura, who was a decent normal guy so would always come up with the most normal and decent plans.

"We can't make 50 million by selling lemonade." Inui pointed out.

"Still, we can put up a flea market or some garage sales to make money. And we can ask around the school for donations." Said practical Ryoma. It's strange how he was the youngest but always the most practical.

"I have an idea." Said Inui. Everyone looked at him, expecting it to be a very weird idea because Inui was so weird. However, Inui's idea was not the type of weird that they had suspected.

"Have you ever seen that movie _Ocean's Eleven_?"

"You mean the one with Brad Pitt and George Clooney and all those other hot guys?"

"Yes."

"So what about it?

"That movie is about some guys who got bored with life and robbed a casino." Inui explained. "They got away with a lot of money."

"There's no casino around for us to rob." Ryoma reminded him.

"Yes, but there's a bank across the street."

Everyone pondered this.

"Might work." Said Tezuka, calmly writing this option on the whiteboard beside "donations and flea market".

"Any other ideas?"

"We can borrow from Atobe." Said Fuji with his usual smile.

This statement won the hearts of everybody immediately.

"Great plan! We should have thought of it earlier!" cried Momo excitedly and he started to dance because all the problems were solved.

"Yeah, we can pay him back after." Said Kikumaru, visibly brightening up.

"He's so rich it wouldn't make much of a difference really." Said Kawamura, looking at Fuji with admiration for thinking up such an idea.

Tezuka turned around and put "Borrow from Atobe" on the whiteboard and announced, "Now it's time to vote."

As could be expected, there were 3 votes for " donations and flea market", four for "rob a bank", and "borrow from Atobe" won by seven.

"Then it's decided." Concluded Tezuka. "We rob a bank."

"WHAT?" everyone yelled. "WHAT ABOUT ATOBE?"

"We can't borrow from Atobe." Tezuka explained. "There are dignity issues."

"This is so not the time to care about dignity!" Kikumaru stood up and banged on the table, which was brave because it takes a lot of courage to bang on the table in front of your buchou. But really Kikumaru was past caring. "We don't need dignity! Well at least I don't anyway."

"I know." Sighed Tezuka. "But this isn't about our dignity. It's about Atobe's. He wouldn't talk to me anymore since he heard that my pet rooster is named Atobe, let alone lend us any money."

"Why name your rooster Atobe?" asked a very confused Kawamura.

"Ask him." Tezuka pointed at Fuji who clearly was the one that gave the rooster its name.

"I think it's a nice name." Replied Fuji with his killer smile.

"The important question is, why keep a rooster at all?" muttered Ryoma.

"It wakes me up in the mornings, so I won't be late for practice." Tezuka explained to everyone.

"Don't you know that there is such a thing called an alarm clock?" said Kikumaru in honest surprise.

"Well, if we can't borrow from Atobe, can we try the other Hyoutei members? I mean, they are all rich. They can't all be unwilling to help, that's just too mean. At least I'm pretty sure that Ootori…" began Kawamura.

"Remember, Atobe is their buchou. They _listen_ to Atobe." Inui shook his head.

"Anyway, borrowing from Hyoutei is out of the question." Tezuka concluded. "So, we rob a bank."

"Now, coming from buchou, it feels a bit weird." Whispered Momo.

"And he said it as if it were not wrong at all." Kaidoh also whispered, for once in his life inclined to agree with Momo.

Tezuka scanned the group seriously. "As you all know, robbing a bank means breaking the law. If we get caught, we will be putting our parents in a very bad situation. Some of us older ones may have to go to the jail for juvenile delinquents. Also, what may happen during the robbery cannot be predicted, which means that we might kill or injure someone in the process, and that is quite dangerous. Therefore…"

Everyone was waiting for their buchou to say something along the lines of "therefore, we must not rob a bank!" but Tezuka said instead, "therefore, we must not get caught! Understood?"

"I used to think that buchou was a…righteous person." Said Momo thoughtfully. "But of course, if buchou says rob a bank, then I'll definitely rob a bank!"

As can be expected from Momo who likes all things that are exciting and involves a lot of action.

"I've no objections to robbing a bank whatsoever." Said Fuji because he was a sadist.

"Me neither." Said Ryoma, pulling down his cap. "You all still have got a lot to learn."

"I'm game!" grinned Kikumaru.

"So am I." Said Kawamura because he would never object to anything everyone has agreed on.

"The chances of us getting arrested are 98. That means a lifetime of suffering from prejudice of others, a few years in jail, trouble to our parents and a 5 chance for anyone to have a bright future. We will have trouble finding jobs with a criminal record, people will look down on us, we will never be able to play tennis without a care like we do now…" said Inui, looking at his notebook. "So, **what are we waiting for?**"

"So everybody's in!" cheered Momo. "What about you, mamushiiiii?"

"I'm in." hissed Kaidoh. He was afraid of the 98 chance that Inui just mentioned, but he was a hot-headed 13-year-old and naturally loved the idea of robbing a bank. Besides, no way he's going to stay out if all the others are going in!

"Oh, you don't have to rob a bank." Said Inui pleasantly.

"I don't?"

"Why?" demanded Momo.

"Well," Inui lifted his glasses, "since_ Kaoru's Cooking Class_ is so popular now, I'm thinking of having Kaidoh give a live performance outside the bank. It will be a great distraction."

"Good thinking!" everybody praised Inui except Kaidoh who was sad because he didn't want to be left out and hated cooking.

"I've got a question." Kikumaru raised his hand. "There are eleven people in_ Ocean's Eleven_, but we've only got eight!"

"It's just the title." Inui explained, "We don't really need eleven people. We are not going follow the plan in the movie because we are not that high-tech and besides casinos and banks are different."

"We can always get the freshman trio to help, you know." Fuji said, "That makes eleven."

"Them? But they are just freshmen with bright futures ahead. Are you sure we want to sacrifice their bright future?" Said Momo.

"Hey, I'm a freshman too. What about _my_ bright future?" Piped up Ryoma.

"You are different, you know. You are the prince of tennis."

"Shut up."

"It's time for class." Tezuka interrupted their pointless chatter. "As we may all be in jail pretty soon, we might as well cherish the last few days of class. So meeting dismissed. Go back to class now, everyone."

Everyone disappeared accordingly because they wanted to obey their buchou, or at least look like they were obeying their buchou. We can safely infer that many of them did not go to class at all.

* * *

To be continued. Thanks for reading! Reviews will be really appreciated: ) 


	5. Chapter 5

Tezuka, for once in his fourteen years of life, skipped class.

Yes. Him. Tezuka Kunimitsu. Skipped class.

There didn't seem to be any point of going to class anyway, as he would probably be in jail next week. He decided to spend the last few precious days admiring the blue sky, which he would not be able to see in prison.

He had always been a good student. Good grades, never broke rules, loved by all the teachers…yet he had just told his tennis team members to rob a bank. Which they happily agreed to. He felt like he was taking away the future of his team members, and couldn't help feeling a bit guilty even though it was not like he forced them to do this with a gun. But still he was kind of glad inside. He was glad that his team members agreed to anything he said unconditionally and seemed to trust him in everyway. He was even more glad that they were willing to do anything to help a friend even if their own futures are at stake.

He was glad that he had these guys as team members. They may be a bit crazy…no, very crazy…but really they are the best he can ask for.

Tezuka sat on the school track field lost in his own thoughts. If Oishi had been around at all, he would probably came to ask if something was wrong.

WELL, OF COURSE SOMETHING'S WRONG! WE ARE ACTUALLY ROBBING A BANK NEXT WEEK! He said to the invisible Oishi. AND ALL BECAUSE OF YOU! Not that we blame you though, we know you don't like getting hit by a bus that much.

"Still, it can't be that bad to be in prison if we are all together…" Tezuka commented thoughtfully to himself. With the other team members around life could never be dull.

And he had a start when a rather lazy voice replied to his comment. " Yeah, and it will be pretty fun if we all break out from prison and become fugitives together, don't you think?"

He did not need to see the person to know that it was Fuji.

"After we give the money to Black Jack, we can steal a van. I know Inui can drive." Fuji went on calmly. "We will drive to any place we like, stealing food and loose cash on the way. We can stop the van whenever we come to some place we think is good, like the beach or some river. And we will spend all our time playing card games in MacDonalds, buying fried chicken and having pillow fights…"

"And," despite himself Tezuka continued for him, "If we see a policeman, we will find some place to hide, and wait till he goes away…"

"If the policeman notices us and comes after us, we will just use different means of transportation to shake him off. Momo can grab a bike, Taka-san can grab a motorbike, and I have the strangest impression that Inui will be pretty good on a tricycle…we may split up to distract the enemy, but in the end we will always come together again and go on with our journey…"

"Fuji." Tezuka broke in suddenly.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. For making me less worried." Worrying had always been Oishi's job but now he was not around it seemed that Tezuka had somehow taken over this occupation.

"You know they like to rape guys our age in those prisons." Said Fuji rather absent-mindedly. "I've heard that they like guys with glasses and never smiles the best…"

"I take back my previous comment." Said Tezuka decidedly.

Silence. But companionable silence.

"Don't you have to go to class? Or did you get Kikumaru to cover for you?"

"He can't cover for me because he's skipped class himself. I think he's off to the hospital."

Silence again. But still companionable silence.

"Going to class just doesn't seem that important right now."

"Of course not. We are going to break the law. What do we care about skipping class?"

And they sat there watching the clouds in the sky.

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Kikumaru never liked hospitals. Which was pretty normal. I mean, why would any normal kid like hospitals?

Yet he was here at the hospital. Oishi's mom saw him and managed a half-hearted smile. She did not question the fact that he was here even though it was school time, because she was too overwhelmed by her only son's accident to care about anything else. And she did not object either when Kikumaru pushed open Oishi's door and walked right over to his bed.

This is really too bad for Oishi's mother, thought Kikumaru. She spent half her life raising a son only to have him getting hit by a bus. He wouldn't want to stand in her shoes. And then he decided that he wouldn't want to stand in Oishi's either, because it probably would hurt a lot to be dragged under a bus and having all those tubes and wires stuck into your body.

Kikumaru had concluded three kinds of clichés in his sister's collection of novels and her favorite TV dramas. Number one is that when it rains there would be at least one person who forgot to bring an umbrella. Two is that if the heroine has to get some kind of disease, it will be some romantic kind like leukemia, instead of dysentery on something. Three is that if someone recovers from a car accident, he or she often ends up losing his or her memory. That one was like so cliché that he thought he had probably seen it in over twenty different stories. They were all pretty angsty stories as you can imagine.

But Kikumaru, to his own surprise, realized that he didn't really care if Oishi lost his memory or not (the chances of that happening were pretty slim anyway). It would be fine with him if Oishi forgot everyone, or even only him (which was weird considering the brain structure, but it happened a lot in stories). It would be fine if Oishi woke up and did not know his ABCs or the multiplication table. He didn't care at all.

Because at least Oishi would be awake and alive. That was all Kikumaru could ask for. As long as Oishi lives, nothing else matters.

"Um, Mrs. Oishi? You know, if one day none of us come to visit Oishi anymore…"

"Er?"

"If one day none of us come anymore, I just want you to know that it won't be because we have forgotten about him."

"What are you talking about, dear?" Oishi's mom smiled gently. Really, this Eiji is as cute as they go, she thought to herself. And then she thought, "Now I wonder why my son can't be that cute…AAAHHH! MY SON!!" Because she suddenly remembered that her son was the reason that she was in the hospital in the first place.

"Nothing." Whispered Kikumaru. He turned and ran.

"No matter what happens, it won't be because we have forgotten."

* * *

To be continued. Thanks for reading! Advice is very welcome. I'm taking translating classes now, I hope I might improve a bit by doing so... 


	6. Chapter 6

Finally some action in this chapter...

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"Guys, this is the map of the interior of the bank which is our target." Announced Inui as he stuck a huge poster onto the clubroom whiteboard. 

"Looks so complicated." Complained Horio. He was here because even though everyone said to leave the freshmen trio out of this and let them have their bright future, they decided to get them to help anyway. It's not like anybody really cared about their future.

"No problem, I'll explain." Offered Inui, and proceeded to do so. Inui comes in handy in situations like this, and somehow Tezuka couldn't help remarking to himself that it was a good thing that Inui was on their side, because if he were a bank security guard they would have no chance at all.

"There are two ways to get into the bank. One is the front entrance that everyone takes. The other is a small door at the back. To take the smaller door will mean crossing a backyard, which unfortunately has laser-beam heat detectors that will automatically trigger the alarm if we try to take that route. Also, we need a bank faculty certificate to pass through the door."

"So I guess we can't take the back door! Let's take the front then." Shrugged Horio.

"That won't do." Said Inui. "the back door is the one that leads to the vaults in which they keep all the money."

"Are those vaults right behind the door?" asked Kawamura.

"No, after we pass through the back door we need to pass through another door. Unfortunately, the switch to unlock that door is actually in a control room at the front side of the bank, and they've got a device that reads fingerprints, so if anyone besides the faculty touches the switch the alarm goes off."

"That's too high-tech." Grumbled Kikumaru.

"And that's not all. There are still a few doors that require passwords and a whole lot of security cameras. There might also be some random security guards hanging around." Inui continued placidly.

"That's a bit too hard." Even Tezuka had to admit defeat.

"Why don't we just run in with fake guns and yell FREEZE! HANDS UP! And tell them to give us all their money?" suggested Momo.

"Yeah, that's much faster." Ryoma muttered. "I mean, there's really no point to waste time telling us all that stuff because it's impossible to overcome these obstacles, and besides all people who read this will probably skip that part." Even I skip it.

"But if we do that, we will definitely go to jail." Pointed out Inui. "The only way to not go to jail is to sneak in from the back and grab the money without anyone knowing. And besides we don't need eleven people if we hold up the bank faculty. No one will want to go to jail, so you will probably have a fight over who should be the ones to go."

Inui was always right, so they had a fight then and there.

"I'm not fourteen yet, so I suppose I won't have to go to jail really… therefore I should go." Volunteered Momo.

"Neither am I. You can't go alone, so I should…" began Kaidoh.

"What about me? I'm not fourteen either. I'm not even thirteen." Put in Ryoma.

"Obviously I should go. I'm the buchou after all." Said Tezuka.

"No, I should! I'm Oishi's doubles partner!" declared Kikumaru proudly.

"That's exactly why you shouldn't." said Kawamura. "I'll go!"

"I'll go. It seems fun." Said Fuji, who found all dangerous things fun.

In fact, it seemed that everyone wanted to go to jail. Which was so not the normal reaction.

"Didn't I say that you guys would surely fight?" Inui pushed his glasses upwards and sighed. "Yes, just like I said, we must take the back route to avoid any arguments."

"But Inui, how will we get past all those weird devices?" Asked Kikumaru.

"Haven't you heard a famous saying, _when there's a will, there's a way_?"

- - - - - -- - - ---------------------------------------------------- - - - - - - - - -

The same afternoon found a few of the regulars busily working in their clubroom. Inui was by the table doing something with a 2B pencil and a tiny knife. The freshmen trio were trying out clothes in front of the big mirror, and were ecstatic even though the clothes were ugly and they look hideous in them. Kaidoh, memorizing recipes on the floor, occasionally paid them half-hearted compliments. The large bank map poster Inui had brought lied on the floor, covered with lines and arrows made by markers. The atmosphere was pretty agreeable. They all liked to be actually doing something even thought they liked the planning part too. They just didn't want to sit there doing nothing.

The rest of the regulars were not around. Kawamura was renting a van for their escape with a fake driver's license made by Inui. Tezuka was shopping for all the equipment they might need if they really have to be fugitives and hide from the police for the rest of their lives. Fuji and Kikumaru, who happened to be in the same class, were doing their civics report.

"But this is so not the time to do their civics report!" You complain. Still, that was precisely what they were doing.

"Mr. Imai, how long have you been working here?" Asked Fuji with a most innocent smile, notebook in hand.

"Hmmm… I'd say about ten or eleven years." Answered Mr. Imai, who took a liking to the smiley Fuji immediately. "It hasn't been easy, you know…people always think it must be so simple to be a bank security guard. They are wrong!"

"Oh? Can you please tell us some of the events you remember especially well?" Suggested Fuji. Mr. Imai had to smile too and spilled all his woes and troubles as a bank security guard to the sympathetic listener. He liked Fuji immensely---you don't see students so polite nowadays! And he liked his friend too, the red haired boy who was looking around at everything with unmistakable curiosity and cat-like eyes. Probably this one was interested in becoming a security guard too. Mr. Imai remembered that when he was their age he had wanted wholeheartedly to be a security guard. It had seemed such a fascinating occupation then. But not now alas.

"So, what is your favorite thing about this job, Mr. Imai?" said Fuji, taking out a pen from a pencil bag that had a picture of a bear on it to take notes.

"Well…AAAAHHH SHT!!" because a tennis ball came zooming from nowhere and broke Mr. Imai's window.

"Must be some stupid kid. Wait for me a bit." Mr. Imai stood up in fury and ran out to pursue the culprit.

As soon as he was gone Fuji took out a mini-camera he had obtained from Inui and started taking pictures from the security camera monitor screen. Kikumaru, who had already located the place Mr. Imai kept his password files by looking around and pretending to be curious (not that he wasn't really curious), pranced to the shelves, pulled out a fat folder and started going through it with rapid speed. Luckily he had good eyes.

"Hey, I got the passwords." He exclaimed happily and started copying. "I wonder how long Momo and ochibi can distract him."

"Come back you son of a btch!" Mr. Imai's screams came floating in. He sounded far away.

"You've still got lots to learn." They could also hear Ryoma's smug voice from somewhere.

"They can probably keep him for a long time." Smiled Fuji as he stooped to the ground and started cutting wires in such a practiced fashion that even Kikumaru was shocked.

"Fuji, how can you do that so quickly? Seriously, are you a professional thief or something?"

"I've learned to take apart bombs when I was three…just joking." He smiled at Kikumaru's surprised expression. "No, it's just that I used to enjoy cutting my neighbors' television wires a lot…"

"And you actually don't look at all sorry about it… oh, he's back." They put everything back in a flash because they are two very fast people, and were in their seats looking at Mr. Imai with wide eyes as if it was their first time to see a security guard running after naughty kids. (It was. But it doesn't matter.)

"These kids nowadays…" Mr. Imai took his seat with a sigh. "judging from their uniforms they are from Seigaku too. Like you guys."

"Oh?" said Fuji looking amused.

"But you probably don't know them. Horrid manners. You two are well-educated." Mr. Imai looked at the two guys and grinned. "Now, what was that last question again?"

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To be continued. Reviews are so welcome : ) 


	7. Chapter 7

The live show of _Kaoru's Cooking Class_ was going to start the next day, which meant that it was possibly their last day of freedom. Tezuka Kunimitsu sighed and put his letter to his parents inside his desk drawer. He knew all about his parents' high expectations of him -with such a serious son like him they could hardly help having high expectations- and he really did want to fulfill these expectations. They would go crazy if they heard that he led his teammates to rob a bank.

But there was no other choice.

Tezuka tried to explain everything in the letter, but he doubted his parents would feel that he was justified to rob a bank just by reading that letter.

He was worried. Very worried. But he would never show his worry in front of his team members. They trusted him, and if they saw his fear, no one would be brave.

"We must not disgrace our school," he told them. "Whatever happens, don't tell anyone that we are students from Seigaku. Understand?"

Horio asked confusedly, "But what if the police asks us what school we are from?"

"Tell them that you are from Hyoutei," Tezuka said solemnly. "For example, if asked, I will say that I am Atobe Keigo of Hyoutei."

They all have their doubts as to whether that would work, but Tezuka said it, so it probably will.

"That reminded me of something," Inui announced, "Obviously we can't just go in and call each other by our names, that will be too dangerous. I suggest aliases. For example, Tezuka can be called Atobe."

This suggestion made everyone very excited and enthusiastic.

Kikumaru declared, "I want to be Shishido!"

"No, I want to be Shishido! You can be Oshitari." Momo said.

"I don't want Oshitari! I want Shishido." Kikumaru said stubbornly.

"I want to be Shishido too." Fuji put in with a smile.

It's strange, yes, but somehow all Seigaku wanted to be Shishido.

"Shishido is _mine_!"

"No, _mine_!"

"Shishido's not yours. He belongs to Ootori. But I want his name."

"No,_ I_ want his name! You can be Oshitari!"

"I don't want to be Oshitari!"

"Me neither!"

And strangely enough, no one wanted to be Oshitari.

"Oh, I can be Sengoku. He's LUCKY!" Kikumaru said suddenly, having changed his mind because he was always fickle.

"You can't be Sengoku, he's not from Hyoutei." Momo pointed out.

"Who says it has to be Hyoutei?"

Inui finally decided to interrupt them. "I knew you would fight. But don't worry, I've written some names on pieces of paper. You can just draw from them."

Inui was so useful that everyone wondered what they would do without him.

"I suppose I don't have to? Because it's already decided that I'm going to be Atobe and no one seemed to object." Tezuka said with a frown.

"You're okay if you've already decided. I've also decided on Oishi's alias. He can be Jiroh because he's sleeping all the time."

"It's not like he's doing it on purpose. . ." sighed Tezuka, "besides, he doesn't need an alias anyway because he's not going to be actually robbing the bank at all. . ."

"We can always name our mission after him," Inui suggested, "like Operation Jiroh or something."

"Aaaaaahhhh! I have Oshitari!!" Momo yelled as if Oshitari was some kind of disease.

"Oshitari is fine!" said Kawamura, looking surprised because there was a totally unexpected name on his paper. " I got George Washington!"

"Why is George Washington a choice?" Kikumaru turned to Inui, but stopped suddenly. "Oh wow! I got Shishido! Yay!!!"

"No fair! Switch with mine? Please?" Momo pleaded.

"Never!"

"I got Hiyoshi." Horio muttered.

"Good, you must try hard to gekokujyou!" Fuji said happily. "Mine is Ootori."

"Why is mine Michael Jackson?" Ryoma screamed and threw his paper away.

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As we already know, Tezuka knew that his parents had high expectations of him. All the regulars who were not Tezuka may not know about their parents' expectations, being the ignorant kids they were, but they did know that their parents loved them and would be devastated if they went to jail.

Therefore, they spent their might-be last night with their parents quite sentimentally. Momo offered to wash the dinner dishes and ate little, much to the surprise of his parents. Ryoma cleaned the toilets and spent the rest of his time cuddling Karupin and whispering to her all kinds of emotional words that he would never say to a human being. Fuji added wasabi into all the cans of soy sauce they had in their kitchen cupboard as a farewell gift to his family. Kaidoh volunteered to cook dinner and made all the favorite dishes of his parents. Inui studied all night, quite aware that his parents were watching him secretly from behind, murmuring to each other proudly that their son would become an important personage someday. Kawamura stayed late to help his dad in the sushi restaurant and gave his father a big hug, making him very happy. Kikumaru took two hours to tell every member of the family how much he loved them, which made them all very confused.

"Must be going through some weird phase," Kikumaru's mother said, Googling "14 years old" and "strange sentimental behavior" on the Internet.

(A/N: As for the freshman trio, I have no idea what their families are like, so I will just skip them. Horio hates me because of this, but the other two seemed to be pretty used to being forgotten, so they said it's okay.)

Eiji (1) had a dream about Oishi that night. It was the first time Oishi had ever appeared in his dreams.

In the dream, Oishi was sitting on what seemed to be a huge prairie, in front of a campfire. There was a tent somewhere behind him. Sounds of coyotes howling in the dark could be heard some distance away. It looked like that he was keeping watch.

Suddenly someone walked out of the tent. Oishi turned to smile at him and saw that it was Oshitari.

"Hey Oshitari, I think we are surrounded by coyotes." He said.

"Surrounded?" said Oshitari. He then proceeded to turn around, lift the tent flap and yell into the tent. "WE ARE SURROUNDED BY COYOTES!! COME OUT AND LET'S KILL THEM ALL!!"

"I know, I know… you didn't have to yell like that." Kamio muttered, emerging from inside the tent carrying a rifle.

It suddenly occurred to Eiji that it was a very small tent.

WHY WERE OSHITARI AND KAMIO SLEEPING IN THE SAME TENT?!!

He was so shocked by the prospect of what these two could be doing in the very small tent that he woke up straight away.

He told himself that anything could happen in a dream, so that there was nothing to worry about. He soon forgot all about Oshitari and Kamio.

But he remembered Oishi's smile. He was smiling at Oshitari, yes, but it didn't matter.

"When will you ever smile at me again? …No, _will_ you ever smile at me again?"

* * *

(1) I call him Kikumaru, but "u" is next to "y" on the keyboard and I am getting so tired of always accidentally typing his name as "KikuMARY" that I am going to call him Eiji from now on.

To be continued. Reviews are so welcome! And thank you mysticLegend11 for beta-ing for me. I do need to improve my grammar. . .

And to the anonymous reviewers:

To Minda: Yay!! Thanks for reviewing! I'll do my best.

To juikl: Thanks for reviewing too! But I'm sorry because I don't know how to reply to "cghfghdfgj". Er. . .maybe "bjkksdcguiicaldihco"?

To terrfomp92: Thanks! I'm glad that you can review for me! I didn't know I had actually disabled anon. reviews in the past… I'm still a little bit unfamiliar with how to use everything, you know…


	8. Chapter 8

The day finally came when the regulars were going to pass the point of no return and become juvenile delinquents. But we would have to look from Mr. Imai's point of view first.

Mr. Imai, forty years old and a bank security guard for years, was having an extraordinarily bad day. He forgot his tie after he left his house, returned to retrieve it but discovered that he had forgotten to bring the house key, and then missed his usual bus. When he arrived at the bank he was severely scolded by the bank manager, whom he hated passionately and regarded as one of the ugliest people in the world. But he was the manager, so Mr. Imai could not talk back to him. His colleagues laughed at him, and after that he spilled coffee all over his (formerly) brand-new white shirt. He went to the men's room to clean it off, and came back to his seat to find that someone had stolen his wallet…As it were, he was having one of the worst days in his life.

He sat in his seat all blue and melancholy when a siren started blaring. It was the laser heat-detector used in the bank backyard. In all his years as a security guard, Mr. Imai had never actually heard that alarm go off before, and used to have his doubts as to whether this device worked at all. Rather surprised, he picked up his gun and went out the back door to check it out.

While he was gone, we could see three small boys slowly making their way out of the huge crowd that had gathered to see their favorite cooking instructor, Kaidoh Kaoru.

"Where is the control room anyway?" Kachiroh asked confusedly, staring at the map in his hands.

"You can't read a map?" Horio exclaimed, "Pathetic! Let me see that map. I have two years of map-reading experience."

"Um, but this is a contour map…" Kachiroh said.

Even at such a critical moment, Inui had to give them a contour map. He just couldn't help it, being Inui.

Meanwhile, Mr. Imai carefully searched the backyard, looking for any possible object that could have caused the alarm to go off. After all, it might not really be anything dangerous. The device was supposed to detect warm things, so it's not very likely that he would run into something dangerous…

And then he spotted the culprit: a cat.

Yes, a Himalayan cat was taking a walk in the bank backyard, looking sleek and dignified.

"How could a cat get in here?" Mr. Imai wondered. There were walls after all… and cats don't climb walls, do they?

He told the cat, "Shoo! Shoo!" But the cat, which was of course Karupin, wouldn't "shoo" and continued to parade around the backyard like it was her own territory.

Feeling stupid because he was actually talking to a cat and the chances of her understanding him were pretty low, he warned, "If you don't get out this instant, I will throw you out!"

Karupin went on plodding around the place. The already fuming security guard tried to grab her, but she slipped away easily with a tiny meow.

"Why is it that even cats hate me?" Mr. Imai yelled to himself. "I swear, if I don't catch you and take your pants off, I will change my last name!" (That was impossible as Karupin was obviously not wearing any pants.)

After what seemed like an hour of jumping and running about, Mr. Imai was sweating like madness, but not any closer to capturing Karupin. He was boiling with anger when he heard the voice of the manager booming from inside the bank.

"IMAI! WHY ARE YOU NOT IN YOUR SEAT?"

"Coming, coming…" Mr. Imai answered exasperatedly, finally giving up his quest of cat-capturing and slumped back into his seat. He hated the manager with all his guts. He worked harder than the manager, was smarter than the manager, was more good-looking than the manager…yet he was ordered about by the lazy, stupid and ugly man all the time. That was too unfair.

Mr. Imai sighed deeply and tried to concentrate on his work again, yet the alarm was still going, creating a racket. It should, since the cat was still in the backyard…

"I HATE CATS!!!" Mr. Imai shouted, lifting a foot and kicking the laser heat-detecting machine. The siren stopped blaring abruptly. Mr. Imai did not know whether it was because he had broken the machine or because he had kicked the switch by accident, but he was past caring.

The room was gloriously silent without the blaring siren. Mr. Imai leaned back in his chair, feeling an absolute happiness and a tranquility that he had never experienced before.

"Atobe, Atobe, this is base speaking." Inui's voice came over Tezuka's wireless radio set. Inui was situated in their chemistry classroom, which made a perfect base since it was right across the street from the bank and provided perfect view.

"Yes?" Tezuka said.

Inui adjusted his binoculars. " The guard has turned off the alarm. You are clear to cross the backyard. Over."

"Roger that. Over and out." Tezuka said. He turned to the rest of his teammates, who were all looking at him with eager eyes.

"Yudan sezu ni ikou."

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Yay! I finally get to say Yudan sezu ni ikou! I like this sentence because it is so Tezuka. Sorry about too much Mr. Imai in this chapter... To be continued. Thanks for reviewing!

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To the anon. reviewers: shourin: Thanks for reviewing! I'm so glad you liked it. forgotten hiyoshi: Thanks for reviewing! I love Hiyoshi! Gekokujyou! terrfomp92: Thank you for reviewing! Yeah, always typing kikumaru as "kikuMARY" is so frustrating. And typing Kaidoh as "Kaidog" is also frustrating, but I'm not calling him Kaoru... I will try translating more stories from Chinese after I finish this one! Thank you! 


	9. Chapter 9

The first problem they were going to face was the door that needed a faculty certificate to open. Luckily Inui had a habit of faking card bar-codes and had been practicing with telephone cards ever since he was very little. In his junior high school years he was already so good that he could borrow books under other people's names. All he needed was a 2B pencil, a sharp knife and an expired comic store member certificate or something of the same sort to make a fake card with bar-codes that would grant them access into the bank easily. (1)

"We are in. Over," Tezuka reported to their base.

"Roger that. Your turn, Hiyoshi," Inui commanded.

Horio, who was apparently not Hiyoshi, took out another Inui-made fake certificate and let himself into the control room. The next obstacle was the switch that enabled his senpais to get through another door. The bank security alarm was connected to the switch, and would go off if someone with fingerprints that did not match any of the faculty's pressed it. In fact it would go off if anything besides the security's fingers touched it, so they couldn't use gloves or the tip of an umbrella either.

Horio had wondered, "How are we going to get any of the bank faculty's fingerprints?"

"We don't need to," Inui replied.

Horio pointed out, "But then the alarm will go off!"

"Then we will just let it go off," Inui said calmly.

Horio sighed. He didn't like this at all, but he trusted Inui because Inui was weird and weird people were always trustworthy. So he pressed the switch. Immediately sirens started blaring everywhere, causing a commotion in the crowded bank. Mr. Imai, dismayed that so many troubling occurrences were happening in one single day, shoved his way through the crowd to investigate.

The remaining two of the freshmen trio were right on cue. They emerged holding a giant cat statue, looking pale, bewildered and scared to death. When it came to pretending to look pale, bewildered and scared to death, these two were practically naturals.

Mr. Imai demanded, "Where are you two going with our company mascot?" He thought himself surprisingly lucky. Not many thieves who go around stealing company mascots can be caught this easily. Other bank workers and some nosey old ladies gathered around them, not wanting to miss the fun.

An old woman sighed. "Young people nowadays…and not much older than my little Tommy too. What will become of them when they grow up?"

"We must get their parents or call the cops." Another old woman shook her head, pulling Katsuo's ear as it was her idea of a punishment.

"We… we are hungry… we don't have anything to eat…" Tears welled up in Kachiroh's big eyes and he began to cry.

"Please let my brother go!" Katsuo cried, putting his heart and soul into acting, "This was my idea… This is all my fault… You can do whatever you want to me, but please let him go!"

Elderly women are a strange species. Their hearts soften surprisingly easily. Seeing that the two were practically shaking and holding each other in blind fear, they stopped all their scolding and started talking politics instead.

"The government nowadays… those needy people…"

"What are they doing anyway, the kids are starving…"

"I blame the president entirely…"

"Don't cry, dears, I've got some candy here." One of the women pulled out some candy, stuffing them into Kachiroh's trembling hands.

Another lady beamed, reminding, "Whatever you need, just ask."

And the two were miraculously let off the hook. Well, not so miraculously considering that they were cute little boys. No one even noticed that the reason the alarm went off was not because they had stolen the cat.

Mr. Imai, busily calming down the flustered crowd and explaining the situation to the people who were demanding to know what happened, did not return to his seat for some time. While he was absent from his place, a group of people appeared in the hallway on the security monitor screen. One of them took out a photograph he had taken previously and pinned it to the security camera of the hall. Now on the screen it looked as if the hall was empty, even though six students were passing through it.

Fiji… no, Fuji, said, "One security camera down, over." ( I think I just wanted to go on a vacation too much…)

"Good job. Five more to go, Choutaro." Inui replied.

Fuji, who was not Choutaro at all, went on placidly with the others towards their destination, fixing the security cameras on the way. Mr. Imai never saw them once.

"Finally, I've finished with all the security cameras," Fuji said with his usual killer smile. "Now no one will be able to see us. We should focus on dealing with the patrolling guards from now on." He pulled out a gun to add to the effect.

Everyone cried in shock, "Why do you have a gun?"

"Don't worry, this is just a water gun." Fuji smiled and pulled the trigger, aiming at the floor, and they all saw that it was indeed a water gun.

Momo asked, "What's the point of having a water gun then?" but he suddenly discovered that the liquid that came out of the water gun was making a hole in the carpet.

And then Momo decided that it suited Fuji to have strange liquid in his water gun and also that he wouldn't ever try making Fuji mad in the future. As he was thinking this, however, a sudden holler of "FREEZE! PUT YOUR HANDS OVER YOUR HEADS" startled him and everybody else.

They all sighed. Damn, discovered so soon…but they couldn't just run away either as the voice came from a security guard who had a gun, and it's stupid to mess with someone who had a gun.

"ON YOUR OWN HEAD! NOT OTHER PEOPLE'S HEADS!" The security guard shouted at Momo, who was happily making bunny ears with his fingers over Tezuka's head.

"You didn't say it had to be my own head…" Momo muttered, reluctantly placing his hands where they should be.

"Well, Mr. Security guard, you know that my senpai is the kind of idiot who, when told he was not supposed to put his arms or head outside the cart when going on a roller coaster, will gladly put his feet outside the cart instead. He's that stupid." Ryoma explained.

"What? That's cruel, Echizen," Momo cried, wounded. (Not physically.)

"You _are_ stupid, you know." Kaidoh hissed, never missing a chance to tell Momo how stupid he was.

"Want to fight?"

"Fine!"

Mr. Kobayashi, who happened to be the security guard, was surprised. In all his life he had never seen anyone who could actually keep on fighting even with a gun pointed at his head.

"Um, can you please let us pass? We have someone important to save." Eiji, who naively thought that as long as he asked for a favor nicely others would surely oblige, said.

And surprisingly, he was right. Mr. Kobayashi did oblige.

"Okay. You may pass. But there's something you must do for me though."

* * *

(1)The faking bar-codes thing sounds pretty impossible, but in fact it can be done. I ought to know because my classmates did it a lot so they could borrow books with other people's library cards and all that… Also, it seems that people don't really use bar-codes to get in banks nowadays, they swipe cards. I'm sorry for this bug. 

To be continued. I'm afraid that this story will become more and more random and illogical in the future. It seemed that the original had started out seriously, but everyone who read it on the Chinese fanfic site we posted it on thought it was supposed to be crack, and to fulfill everyone's expectations we made it more and more random as the story went on. (Yeah, I know this is just an excuse. I could have changed the storyline but I didn't because that would be unfaithful to the original and I actually liked the random parts a lot myself... Sorry.) Reviews are very welcome.

To the anon. reviewers:

Terrfomp92: Thanks for the review! I don't know how they translate "Yudan sezu ni ikou" in English, as I haven't watched English PoT before, but anyway I think it means something like "Go (towards your goal) without letting your guard down". (That "ikou" is a bit hard to translate…) And thanks for being glad that there were no pairings in this story. I had always been a bit worried because in Chinese fanfic sites there are pairs in just about every story, so I sometimes feel weird not writing about pairs… I like reading about pairings myself but I suck at writing romantic scenes, so I never try…

Shourin: No, I don't hate you because you comment so much. Actually you might hate me because I reply so much… So Karupin is MALE! I am so surprised! Thanks for the information. Anyway, being male doesn't make him any less cute. I want Karupin for a pet. I already have a cat though…

Forgotten hyoshi: I just discovered that your name was actually hyoshi and I have mistaken it for Hiyoshi all the time! That must be because I like Hiyoshi too much, so I'm seeing him everywhere and singing his theme song to my cat all day. Besides that I couldn't find anything wrong with your review… I give up…


	10. Chapter 10

"Okay. You may pass. But you must do one thing for me first though." Mr. Kobayashi said.

Smiling as always, Fuji asked, "And what will that be?"

"Well, the life of a security guard tends to get a bit boring, you see… so we guards of the vaults amuse ourselves with games and challenges. Now, if you leave one person here to take my challenge, I will gladly let everyone else pass."

"This sort of reminds me of the show _The Crystal Maze_," Momo said. "You know, the one that people go about taking weird challenges in rooms and get locked in if they fail. So, do we get locked in the room if we fail too?"

"Of course not. We don't have any rooms to lock you in," Mr. Kobayashi said matter-of-factly, "If you fail, I will simply kill you!"

"Now this is reminding me of SAW…yeah, that movie in which a hell lot of people die…" Momo muttered.

"I want to know why we had been robbing a bank in such a practical way and yet are going to do something very much like RPG now." Ryoma, who was always sensible, said.

"BECAUSE I'M A FREAK! HAHA!!" Mr. Kobayashi said and began to laugh like a maniac.

"We haven't agreed to take your challenge at all." Fuji pointed out, smiling.

"If you don't agree, I'll send you to the police station." Mr. Kobayashi said, smiling in turn.

"It's better to get sent to the police station than die. It's not like we have done anything _very_ wrong yet…" Ryoma replied practically.

Eiji put in, "No, we need the money! I'll take the challenge!"

"Wow, Kikumaru senpai, I didn't know you love Oishi-senpai_ that_ much," Ryoma rolled his eyes.

Eiji cried happily, "Just imagine, with all the money we can get new clothes and all the candy and toothpaste we want!"

"Don't you care about Oishi-senpai AT ALL?" Ryoma sweatdropped, "And besides you can't enjoy the new clothes and candy and toothpaste if you are dead."

"You have a point there," Eiji frowned in thought. "But I still think we should do it. I'll take the challenge!"

"No, I'm the buchou. I will take the challenge," Tezuka said.

"I want to take the challenge. It's bound to be fun," Fuji said.

While everyone got into a heated argument about who should be the one to do it, Kawamura offered quietly aside to Mr. Kobayashi, "I'll take the challenge."

"Okay," Mr. Kobayashi shrugged.

Momo shouted, "Not fair! That's cheating!"

"Senpai, you are still mada mada dane, so let me…" Ryoma cried.

"Too late. He's already logged in." Mr. Kobayashi said.

"What does it have to do with logging in?" Ryoma sighed, "Kawamura senpai…"

"Just go, guys. I'll take care of this." Kawamura said, putting on a brave smile. This scene resembled the supposed-to-be-touching scenes in battle comics when one of the characters sacrificed himself to stay behind while the others went on to complete the mission in every way, except that this was not a battle comic and the mission was robbing a bank instead of something noble, like rescuing the princess.

"Taka-san, please take care of yourself," Fuji reminded. This was one of the rare occasions where he was not smiling. At all.

"Taka-san, you must catch up with us as soon as you completed the challenge!" Eiji said, wiping a tear from his face. "I believe that you can do it!"

"Kawamura," Tezuka said with a shaking voice, "yudan sezu ni ikou!"

"Senpai, you are so great to be willing to sacrifice yourself for everyone…" Momo sobbed emotionally.

Ryoma glared at Momo, "Why are you talking as if Kawamura senpai would surely fail?"

They all turned to look at Kawamura sentimentally for one last time, and went on with determination to succeed.

If this were a supposed-to-be-touching scene in a battle comic, there would have been sad but beautiful elvish music playing in the background, but as this wasn't one, Kawamura and Mr. Kobayashi were left staring at each other in silence.

"Okay, now, kid," Mr. Kobayashi finally began, "I aspire to sell pancakes after I retire, but I can't do that without some money. Therefore, your challenge will be to sell all these matches for me. The time limit is 510 months!"

"That is quite a long time limit…" Kawamura thought to himself, but took the large bag of matches and started selling them anyway. He did not succeed in selling any at all, because there were apparently no other people around to buy them.

"Well, maybe they will sell better if I demonstrate how they are used," Kawamura took out some matches and tried to light them. All in a sudden, a voice in his head told him that matches felt pretty much like very thin tennis rackets in his hand.

"BURNING!!" He yelled and burned all the matches. Therefore, he had failed the challenge.

"You burned all my matches! I spent years making them, with my own hands!" Mr. Kobayashi screamed, weeping hysterically. What a crazy man.

"If they were that precious to you, you shouldn't have given them to me in the first place…" Kawamura said, trying to comfort Mr. Kobayashi even though he knew that he was crazy. Kawamura was just nice in this way.

"You have failed!" Mr. Kobayashi bawled. "You must die!"

And with his anguished cries (Kobayashi's, not Kawamura's), Kawamura was transformed into digital information and his body disappeared slowly in to the atmosphere. He managed to leave a dying message, "Do it, guys…do not let me down!"

"TAKA-SAN!!" Everyone heard this since they hadn't gotten very far yet, and all screamed his name so loudly that there were echoes everywhere.

"Don't worry, people," Inui, whom everybody had already forgotten, said, over the wireless radio, "He was just transformed into digital information. I am sure that I can make him come back. You guys go on and take the rest of the challenges." 

Eiji cried in dismay, "There are _more_ challenges?"

"According to my data, the guards in this bank enjoy designing challenges like in role play games, and actually think that their games are the most effective protection of the bank. When there are intruders, they will give out the challenges." Inui explained.

"We were here to rob a bank! Why do we have to play role-play games?" Eiji complained, as if playing role-play games were even more terrible than robbing a bank.

"Anyway, you guys must do your best," Inui said, comfortably safe in his chemistry classroom.

"Yeah, you guys must watch out for yourselves!" Momo said, looking at everyone with sad and worried eyes.

"Stop acting like you were not coming with us!" Everyone shouted, and they all whacked him on the head.

* * *

The Crystal Maze/ A show that I watched a lot in elementary school. They actually had a Chinese version… you know, they got people to voice-act the contestants. It's weird watching them speak Chinese while they were so obviously English, but boy it was fun to watch. You can check it on Wikipedia if you are interested. Sadly they don't have it on TV in our country anymore…

To the anon. reviewers:

Shourin: Oooh! Thanks!

Forgotten hyoshi: Oh, so I actually got it right! The Hiyoshi in the musical is awfully cute (and he sings pretty well… as a matter of fact, all Hyoutei sings well), so don't worry, I won't ever forget Hiyoshi.

Terrfomp92: Yes, I have seen the movie. It _is_ funny. Ryoma and his brother were throwing tornadoes at each other and Tezuka destroyed earth and all the dinosaurs. It was such a stupid movie that I liked it a lot. Thanks for the reviews!

To be continued. Reviews are very welcome!


	11. Chapter 11

As all this was happening, a female reporter was saying excitedly into her microphone, "Hello everyone, I, Riiita Skeeeter, am now in front of the Seishun bank, right across Seishun Gakuen! Today, everyone's favorite Kaoru-kun is here performing live! Look, so many people are here to see him! Miss, how old are you?" She shoved her microphone in front of an embarrassed young girl.

"Uh, twenty-two… oh, I have cameraphobia…" the girl stammered and backed out of sight.

Skeeeter persisted, "Are you a fan of our Kaoru-kun?"

"Of course we are his fans!" the whole crowd screamed enthusiastically, fighting to tell everyone just how much they loved Kaidoh.

"Kaoru-kun is mine!"

"No, mine!"

"Mine!"

The above was of no importance. The following is of no importance either.

"Hello everyone, I, Riiita Skeeeter, am now at the famous Hyoutei Gakuen! A little bird told me that the captain of the tennis club, Atobe Keigo, has been sneezing all day! Can it be because someone misses him and is frequently using his name? Let's find out together! Hey, hello! Are you Atobe Keigo?" She asked a passing student.

"I'M MOST DEFINITELY NOT ATOBE!" screamed Shishido, who hated to be mistaken for Atobe. Then, not many will be happy to be mistaken for Atobe, for that matter.

Here's another thing that's also not of any importance.

"Hello everybody! I, Riiita Skeeeter, am now at the core of the Earth! AAAAHHHHHH!! THIS IS SO HOT! AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!" Then she died.

Why did she ever go there in the first place?

On the other hand, the regulars who were not Kaidoh, Inui, Oishi or Kawamura and therefore were not cooking, absent, half dead or dead were heading down the hall. They soon came to two doors that were not on Inui's map.

"Which one should we open?" Tezuka pondered carefully, being the leader and very sensible.

"The one on the left says _Open this door to have a basketball competition with LeBron James_, and the one on the right says _Open this door to have a basketball competition with J.S. Bach_." Eiji reported back to Tezuka, because he had good eyesight. Well, not exactly because he had good eyesight. Practically anyone could read those words without trouble.

"LeBron James plays in NBA, so we should probably choose Bach," Ryoma reasoned.

Therefore they pushed open the door that was supposed to have Bach behind it. But to their surprise the room was empty.

Eiji asked, bewildered, "Why?"

"I think it must be because Bach is already dead," Momo said sadly. "And I thought I could actually have the honor of playing basketball with him! I'm so unhappy, I will hang myself." And he took out a piece of rope to hang himself.

"Don't hang yourself. Life is beautiful," Fuji said gently.

"Okay," Momo said and he put away his rope.

"If you agreed to not hanging yourself so easily, why do it in the first place?" Everyone whacked him on the head, which was the second time they did since they came into the bank.

After everyone whacked Momo on the head, a man in a kimono appeared from the shadows of the room. He looked about forty or fifty, but his age did not affect his good looks. They all concluded that he was the kind of man who looks more handsome with his age, like Sean Connery.

"Hi, call me Mr. Tanaka!" he introduced himself while everyone wondered why all the security guards that had shown up so far had names out of Japanese textbooks.

"I'm a great fan of the Lakers in NBA!" he continued. " By the way, did you watch the game between Lakers and Pistons yesterday? It ended 89 to 89! Take a guess, which team do you think got 89 points?"

Momo took a guess, "Er… I'll go with the Pistons?" And everyone whacked him on the head again.

"I was joking…" Momo said sadly.

"Just ignore Dad. He's a bit insane," said a girl apologetically, appearing from behind Mr. Tanaka, "Dad, Mom and I are in charge of this challenge."

"Yes. In hopes of finding a suitable husband for my daughter, we decided that you have to beat all three of us in combat for this challenge," the mother said.

The five regulars all stared at Mrs. Tanaka, who was wearing an apron and did not look like the fighting type.

"Don't underestimate my wife!" Mr. Tanaka put in. "She is one of the fastest people I've ever known! And of course you know that it's good to have speed when fighting. It's almost better than reading a fanfic about Tezuka and Kunimitsu in love!"

Ryoma muttered, "Aren't they, like, the same person?"

Tezuka thought that it would be better to just get it over with, so coughed calmly, "We will accept the challenge. Just tell us the rules please."

"We will have three one-on-one matches, you can bring weapons of your choice. The winner can marry my daughter!" Mr. Tanaka explained.

No one liked the idea of marrying his daughter, but they all agreed anyway.

"I'm first up! Who wants to fight me?" Mrs. Tanaka asked.

"When it comes to speed, I won't lose to anyone!" Eiji declared proudly and volunteered to go first.

Therefore Mrs. Tanaka and Eiji said their good-mornings like in Japanese wrestling matches and began to combat.

"Wait, I don't think he's suitable to be my daughter's husband," Mrs. Tanaka said suddenly.

"Why?"

"I want my son-in-law to be a reliable man," Mrs. Tanaka explained.

Eiji said in surprise, "What, I'm not reliable?"

"No, you are reliable enough. But you are not a man," Mrs. Tanaka said.

And Eiji was immediately disqualified from the match and automatically transformed in to digital information, so he disappeared.

The next match was between Momo and Mr. Tanaka. They were already in their fighting positions when Mr. Tanaka decided that he didn't like Momo for his son-in-law either.

"Why?" Momo cried, "I'm sure I will make a good husband!"

"I've always wanted a pretty guy for a son-in-law…" The father said sheepishly.

As a result, Momo joined Eiji in the digital information database right away. That was awfully fast.

Fuji offered to combat the daughter herself. He walked up towards her with a bright smile and both parents were thoroughly pleased.

"Take him!" Mrs. Tanaka exclaimed, flushed with excitement, "he looks so cultured and so sweet!"

"He's the prettiest guy I've ever seen!" Mr. Tanaka almost blushed.

"But… actually… well, Dad and Mom, I'm lesbian," The daughter admitted.

So the third match ended up with Fuji being transformed into digital information too. Having successfully eliminated some intruders, the family disappeared into the shadows, hoping to find a better son/ daughter-in-law in the future.

Tezuka and Ryoma looked at each other, both extremely pale.

"Buchou, why isn't everything going according to plan? What should we do?" Ryoma asked Tezuka beseechingly.

"Don't worry about your senpais, Inui is good, so he will make them come back. We must not fail them, so let's get the money." Tezuka told him even though he was a bit worried as well. How could he not be? Even invincible Fuji was taken, after all…

"Yudan sezu ni ikou," he said (again!).

* * *

To be continued. Thanks for reading! Reviews are so welcome.

To the anon. reviewers:

Terrfomp92: I adore best friends who write things together. Yeah, I think that movie was lovable _because_ it was stupid. I wouldn't have liked it so much if it were serious.

Forgotten hyoshi: Yes, I hate homework too. They are giving us way too much.


	12. Chapter 12

The two ran down the corridor towards the vaults together. Being Tezuka and Ryoma, they were, of course, saying encouraging words like "Don't let your guard down", "You've still got lots to learn" and "You are the prince of tennis" to each other as they ran.

Finally reaching the door of one of the vaults with money inside, they discovered that it was blocked by a strong, muscular man that resembled Shrek in every way, except that he was not green.

"You cannot pass!" he declared, like Gandalf in Lord of the Rings.

Tezuka looked at him and silently calculated the chances of his winning against this creature.

"Echizen, you go on forward. Leave this to me," Tezuka said between gritted teeth.

"But buchou…" Ryoma began. He was worried about Tezuka's wounded shoulder, and besides it wasn't like the shoulder would make any difference anyway, the creature being twice Tezuka's size.

Tezuka looked stern. "No buts, GO!"

So Ryoma obediently went. With Inui's directions over the wireless radio, he quickly found all the money he needed. Even though he was scared and trembling, he worked efficiently. Soon he emerged from the vault with a bagful of cash, only to see Tezuka on the floor, slowly disappearing like the others had. The Shrek guy was nowhere in sight.

Ryoma threw the money on the floor and knelt down beside his captain, "Buchou, are you okay?"

"Echizen, sorry…"

Ryoma screamed, "Buchou, wait! Don't leave me!"

Despite being smug at most times, Ryoma was only a freshman in junior high after all. He realized that with Tezuka gone he would be the only one left, and the responsibility of completing the mission would be wholly on his shoulders. Desperately hoping that Tezuka would not disappear, he tossed away all his dignity and clung to Tezuka's arm, shouting like a madman.

"Echizen, listen to me," Inui's placid voice came over the wireless. " Kaidoh has everyone's attention now. Come out quickly. I will meet you at the back door in the van."

"But everyone else…" Ryoma cried, still refusing to let go of Tezuka's arm.

"They were just turned into digital information. I can make them come back. Get out NOW!"

Ryoma asked skeptically, "Are you sure that you can really make them come back?"

"Of course! I'm the almighty Inui Sadaharu, the man who was brought up by horses!"

Ryoma was tempted to ask "You were?" but decided that Inui was probably just being stupid, so he answered, "Roger that. Over." He picked up the bag of cash, ready to go.

Tezuka, who had almost completely disappeared, managed to utter a final sentence, "Echizen, you must become the pillar of Seigaku!" Then he vanished.

Ryoma was crying for his buchou when he suddenly had a weird discovery. It seemed that he had been clinging to Tezuka's arm with such force that even though the rest of him was gone, his arm was still there in Ryoma's hand.

"BUCHOU!! WHY THE HECK DID YOU LEAVE YOUR ARM TO ME?"

Ryoma thought that running about with an arm in his hand would be utterly disgusting, but he then decided against throwing the arm away, in case that when Inui made everyone come back Tezuka would not have his arm. Therefore, he put the arm into the bag of cash and took it with him.

Ryoma was right. Inui, being the almighty genius he was, had already used the Microsoft Word "Undo" button to recover Ryoma's lost senpais. And Tezuka was really missing one arm.

"Tezuka, you have only one arm left," Fuji said with a smile.

"Don't say that with such a happy expression," Tezuka said with a scowl.

The others were beside them, sharing their thoughts and feelings about what it was like to be transformed into digital information.

"I think it was a bit like getting electric shock," Eiji said thoughtfully.

"I think it was like eating chicken," Momo, who was a genius in describing things by using food metaphors, offered his opinion.

"We should drive out to pick up Ryoma by now," Kawamura said. "Kaidoh's show is almost over."

He was right. The show _Kaoru's Cooking Class_ was already finishing.

"Kaidoh, we must not let anyone notice Echizen, so please do something surprising to attract everybody." Inui's whispers came to Kaidoh's ear through the headphones he had carefully concealed under his bandanna.

Kaidoh hissed inquisitively, "What surprising thing?"

"For example, you can take off all your clothes," Inui suggested seriously. It was, of course, because he really wanted to see Kaidoh undressed, but Inui was not going to admit it in any way.

"Fine…" Kaidoh sighed, looking at the crowd that would simply not leave, "And finally, this is my newest single in my new album, _Boomerang Snake_!"

The crowd cheered and whipped out their video cameras so they could record Kaidoh's performance.

"I didn't know that Kaidoh senpai had a new album," Kachiroh, who was in the crowd, said confusedly.

"He didn't have a new album," Katsuo said.

"Then he must be making up the song on the spur of the moment," Kachiroh cried.

They both looked up at Kaidoh in admiration. "Oooh! Kaidoh-senpai!"

While Kaidoh was doing his best to attract everyone's attention, our protagonist Echizen Ryoma was almost at the back door. He hesitated all in a sudden.

"I have 50 million dollars. I can buy a lot of cat food for Karupin. I can run away with Karupin and live happily ever after," He thought, adding figures up in his head. And then the demon that lived in his head woke up.

The demon said, "Come on, Oishi-senpai doesn't really mean anything to you. Forget about him and let him die. Elope in Italy with your darling Karupin."

The angel that lived in Ryoma's head said, "But everyone had worked so hard to get here. Oishi-senpai had always been kind to you. And you do like to play tennis with everybody, don't you?"

"As long as you have money, you will be happy."

"But just think of Oishi-senpai's parents!"

A battle between good and evil was going on inside Ryoma's head. Will he finally decide to run away with the money and Karupin, or will he listen to the good angel and meet with everybody?

**The final decision is yours!**

If you think that Ryoma will forget all about his senpais and run away with the money and his cat, please read ending A.

If you think that Ryoma will meet everyone but they will be caught by the police and sent to jail, please go to ending B.

If all you really want to see is a happy ending, please go to ending C.

* * *

Thanks for reading! The alternative endings will appear soon. Reviews on which ending you will like to read the most are very welcome. In fact, reviews that are not about which ending you will like to read the most at all are also very welcome. Short reviews like "Your fic is retarded" or completely irrelevant reviews like "My hamster had babies yesterday! They are so adorable!" are also very welcome.

To the anon. reviewers:

Shourin: Thanks for the review! Somehow "yudan sezu ni ikou" seems such a sexy sentence to me…

Terrfomp92: Yeah, I've seen your new story! It's macabre so it makes me happy. (Hey.) Good luck with your stories!

Forgotten hyoshi: Thanks for the review! Yeah… homework sucks.


	13. Ending A

**Ending A**

We are happy that you chose A, because A is for apple. Anyway, here's what happened.

* * *

Echizen Ryoma decided that eloping with his cat was way better a choice than saving his senpai, so he ran away with the money. The others waited outside the bank for him for some time until finally concluding that Ryoma had run away, so they sadly gave up and returned to the hospital to say a last goodbye to Oishi.

Without the amazing surgery skills of Black Jack, Oishi died the next day. He left many people whom he had always been worried about behind and moved on to another world. His parents naturally found this hard to accept, and the regulars had to do all they could to comfort them.

"I'm sorry. We really did try our best." Tezuka said softly to Oishi's mother.

"I know, I know…" Oishi's mother buried her head in Tezuka's chest, weeping. She had always respected Tezuka, and thought highly of him because of everything he had done for her son.

She went on weeping, "Though I honestly don't know why you had only one arm left…"

"Curse that Echizen…" Tezuka muttered.

Oishi's death had come so suddenly. No one was prepared. They never did have a chance to say goodbye.

They remembered that in their first year, when they had been just freshmen and new on the team, they had tried to play tennis with brooms inside the club changing room, and smashed all the lights in the process. Facing the furious reproaches of the principal, a small Oishi had bravely taken all the blame on himself. He had been punished with scrubbing the floor in front of the principal's room. After school, everyone had come to help him. Inui had produced a strange bottle of liquid and poured it on the floor. The result had been so good that even after three years the particular area still shone.

They remembered that in their second year, Oishi had suggested that they should wax the clubroom floor. It had been nice at first and the teachers approved, but later everyone started skating about the room in socks, knocking things from their places as they did. Momo and Kaidoh had even developed a way to fight and skate at the same time. Their coach Ryuuzaki-sensei, however, had slipped and fell on her face one day, and in her humiliation had made Oishi paint the walls in the principal's office. After school everyone had come to give him a hand again, but this time with Momo and Kaidoh around they ended up throwing paint at each other and ruined the principal's office completely. The principal always detested them afterwards.

They remembered that in their third year, after the school swimming competition, Oishi had changed back into his school uniform and emerged from the changing rooms, only to be pushed back into the pool by Eiji. Momo had seen and laughed at him by the poolside, and while he was laughing Ryoma had pushed him into the water too. Momo, being Momo, would never be satisfied with suffering alone, so he had dragged Kaidoh down into the pool with him. The two had a big fight in the water, and Oishi was so worried that he had a stomachache for a whole week.

But he would never have a stomachache anymore.

Everyone walked silently out of the emergency room, lamenting for their friend who would never come back, and for the good times that would never come back either.

Sitting in the clubroom, Tezuka blamed himself entirely, "If I had not had a chicken named Atobe, this wouldn't have happened."

Eiji also blamed himself, "If I had not gone to buy ice-cream that evening and went to Oishi's house to come with him instead, this wouldn't have happened."

"Yeah, but think about it in a different way," Kawamura said, in attempt to cheer him up, "If you had been there, you might have been hit by the bus too. And we would have two corpses to deal with."

"That's impossible. I have good eyes!" Eiji said indignantly. "If I were there, I…"

But he could not finish the sentence because he was crying so hard. So was everybody else.

The Seigaku tennis team soon lost all its former glory. Their future pillar had run away, their famous golden pair had fallen apart, their buchou had only one arm, and you can hardly expect him to play tennis with one arm. They lost match after match, and when the school decided to shut down the club ten years later, all students were surprised: "What, so we had a tennis club in our school?"

Many years afterwards, in a small, dark café by the sea, you can often see a lonely old man sitting alone in a corner, his cap pulled down, covering his face. He never orders coffee, and will tell his life story to anyone who is willing to buy him a grape Ponta.

"Therefore, my dear young man, don't ever be seduced by money. After my dear Karupin left me, this is all I have…"

"This" is an already dried up arm in his bag. He will then take it out, touching it with affection, as if it were some precious jewel.

"This is all I have…"

The End (A).

* * *

I put ending A up first even though everyone seemed to like C better because, well, it's ending A. Anyway, the other endings will come soon. Thanks for reading! Reviews are so welcome!

Terrfomp92: Yeah, come to think of it, it _was_ a bit too quick… sorry. Thanks for the review: )


	14. Ending B

**Ending B**

You chose the ending B. According to the statistics I've gathered in multiple-choice exams, B and C are usually most likely to be the correct answer, so when you don't know which to pick B is generally one of the safest choices.

You say, "But I didn't pick B because I didn't know which to pick! I chose B because I'm a fan of Mr. Imai! Mr. Imai, I love you!"

Well, if you say so.

* * *

Mr. Imai, with his years of experience as a security guard, had thought something was off right from the beginning. While pretending not to notice, he had already called the cops, and the regulars found themselves cornered by what seemed to be a dozen police cars after they paid Black Jack and emerged from his secret residence. Black Jack had sworn them all to secrecy, and besides they didn't really want Oishi's family to know what they had done, so they came to a silent agreement that the house of Black Jack must not be found by the police, and did their best to distract them. Luckily they were good actors and succeeded persuading the police officers to believe that they were stupid junior high students who were bored with life and robbed a bank for the sheer fun of it.

Therefore, they were all put in a jail for juvenile delinquents, even Kaidoh and those younger than fourteen because the policemen disliked their attitude. Criminals caught red-handed should not be looking so smug (Ryoma, of course) or so stern (Tezuka). Neither should they hiss at the policemen when they put the handcuffs on them (Kaidoh), refuse to take off their glasses (Inui), and especially not smile at the policeman as if they were having a casual conversation about the weather (Fuji).

The shocking news appeared in the headlines of every newspaper. Citizens of Tokyo were devastated to know that their younger generation had no morals whatsoever and would rob banks just because they had nothing better to do. What had the world come to?

Among all the devastated people, Atobe Keigo was especially devastated. He had a right to be.

"Ore-sama demands to know why the newspaper headline reads _Junior High Students Plan Bank Robbery, Leader Claims Himself To Be Atobe Keigo, Son Of Manager Of Famous Keigo Company_!" Atobe screamed, waving his newspaper at everyone who appeared to be near. Tezuka, being the responsible captain he was, took all the blame on himself, but not wanting to get his school into trouble he used Atobe's name.

"That's strange…" Ootori said confusedly, taking over the paper for a closer look. "Hey, they have the names of all the robbers printed here! Wait… Shishido-senpai, your name is on it too."

Shishido threw his tennis racket across the room in shock, "What? It is?"

"Yeah… hey wait! Mine is on it too!"

With his amazing skills Black Jack managed to restore Oishi to health. He was so amazing that Oishi could walk around within a few days time, much to the surprise of his loving parents. To them it was the miracle of miracles. While rejoicing over their son's recovery, Mr. and Mrs. Oishi decided between themselves that it would be much better not to let their son hear that his "friends" at the tennis club had gone to jail. They figured out that Tezuka was not Atobe because they recognized him on a newspaper photo. Not knowing their motive, the parents naturally thought that these kids were terrible influence and not fit to associate with their son.

"Hey…Mom, have you seen my friends from tennis club? I haven't seen them for some time." Oishi said, finally starting to wonder why even his relatives and childhood friends and some people he didn't even know had came to see him and fill his bedside with flowers and unwanted gifts and yet his friends at his club had never shown up once. As far as Oishi could remember, his club mates were particularly meddlesome people, and they would have considered visits to the hospital great fun. Yet not even one of them had come. At least Tezuka surely should have…

Oishi's mom looked up from the apple she was washing, "What?"

"I said, have you seen my friends from tennis club?"

Oishi's mom put down her apple and walked over to Oishi's bed, putting a hand over his forehead, "Do you have a fever or something? You are not in the tennis club. You have always been in the astronomy club!"

"Have I?" Oishi cried in shock.

"Yeah. We bought you such an expensive telescope years ago…" His dad put in from aside.

"But…" Oishi muttered to himself, his mind a complete blank, "wait, that's impossible, we are going to the nationals, Tezuka said…"

Oishi's mom shook her head and exchanged a glance with his dad, "Son, you are probably still a bit dizzy. The doctor did say there might be some damage done to your head… Do you want something to eat? I'll get it for you."

"That's… impossible…" Oishi murmured, finally getting the chance to speak after so many chapters and glad that he had so many lines.

He asked all his visiting friends from school about the tennis club and the others, but got the same result. Everyone told him that he was in the astronomy club. None of them have heard of the other regulars.

"Oishi, you are way too imaginative."

"I think I get it! You know, I used to make up some imaginary friends when I was little and had no one to play with. I would name them and give them personalities. I used to have a purple dinosaur as my best friend! Oishi, are you remembering your imaginary childhood playmates?"

"Hey, that makes sense! Oishi, you have interesting imaginary childhood playmates! Especially that one called Inui. He's so interesting."

"I like Fuji better."

"But Inui is more interesting!"

Oishi listened half-heartedly to his classmates' conversation, staring into space. He just couldn't bring himself to believe that all the vivid memories of the club mates he had come to love so much were just his imagination.

But if they were what I thought they were, they would never miss out the fun of visiting someone at the hospital. How come they never came to see me?

When he was finally fit enough to go home, he searched through all his things, but could not find any photos, or his diaries.

On his first day back to school, everyone was extra kind to him. People followed him everywhere, helping him carry his things, telling him how they missed him during his absence at school and hoping he would be healthy enough to run around soon.

But all he wanted was to be alone.

"It's okay, I can walk myself," Oishi smiled at the classmates that offered to walk him home. He came to the tennis courts, sitting down at the sidelines. The wind swept a few leaves by him.

Oishi closed his eyes to feel the gentle wind on his face. Even though he could not find any evidence of the existence of his club mates, he still believed.

He believed that they would meet again some day. Definitely.

* * *

"Fuji, I'm bored…" Eiji complained to his cellmate, rolling around on his prison bed to show how bored he was. With amazing luck these two had managed to become cellmates in prison, just like they had been classmates in school.

"Don't worry, things will get exciting a few days later," the sadist smiled.

"What? Why? Tell me tell me tell me!"

"Inui's got our escape plan all ready. In a few days he will create a small fire, and then we'll…" Fuji pulled Eiji over and started whispering into his ear because it would be sheer stupidity to say all their plans out loud.

Fuji finished talking, and Eiji exclaimed excitedly, "Hey, that sounds like a cool plan!"

"Yes. But Eiji, you have got to remember, we will be outlaws after we break out. We won't be living like we used to. You won't be able to go home to visit your family." Fuji said seriously, knowing how important his friend's family was to him.

Eiji was still enthusiastic though. "I know, but still, it's so exciting to be outlaws! We are going to have so much fun! Oh, Oishi is probably okay now, we can go visit him some time!"

"That's impossible, Eiji. We are criminals. We can't drag him into our business."

"Well, yeah… but it's all right."

It was all right.

Because he knew that they would meet again some day. Definitely.

**The End (B)

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Thanks for reading! This ending was actually my personal favorite. Anyway, reviews are really welcome! The last one will come soon.

Shourin: Thanks for the review! I'm glad you thought that it was touching.

Terrfomp92: Thanks for the review! I'm glad that you enjoy reviewing for me. I also enjoy replying to your reviews.

Fitty: Sorry for not writing ending C first. Because ending C is the happy ending after all, I figured it will be best to put it last because it will be THE ending. If this whole fic ended with ending B, it will have a sadistic ending, and people will hate me and throw tomatoes at me. Thanks for reviewing:D


	15. Ending C

**Ending C**

The regulars picked up Ryoma at the back door of the bank, and with a swift u-turn their van headed for Black Jack's house. The mission was complete. Perfectly. The people at the bank were still happily enthralled by Kaidoh's amazing singing skills, and had no idea that there was a theft. Even when they finally discovered the loss of the 50 million dollars later, it never occurred to them that it might have something to do with _Kaoru's cooking class_, the mysterious cat in the backyard or the two starved little boys. Inui's plan was that good.

Black Jack was as good as he was famed to be. He sneaked into the hospital in the dead of the night and fixed Oishi's wounds like he promised. He bid the Seigaku regulars farewell under the moon, his cape flapping in wind.

"Your friend will recover very soon."

"Thank you so much for your help," Tezuka said solemnly.

Black Jack waved, "No problem. Take care until we meet again!" Then his figure disappeared into a narrow alley.

"I wish we will never meet him again," Kawamura said thoughtfully, watching him leave.

They couldn't agree with him more.

Poor Mr. Imai was fired by the bank, even though it wasn't his fault. He found a job as janitor in one of the hospitals near his house. When he was patrolling the sidewalks one day, he saw two familiar faces. He remembered them as the two friendly students of Seigaku that had interviewed him for their civics report some time ago.

He also thought that the two boys who were laughing and walking with them looked strangely familiar. One of them was a loud and sunny youth, one of them had his cap shadowing his face.

Mr. Imai wondered where he had seen them before.

Black Jack's expectations were fulfilled pretty soon. Oishi, who had been declared brain-dead by the doctors, shouted "I AM REBORN!" and sat up in bed suddenly one day, giving his mom such a shock that she fainted right into Tezuka's arms.

Oishi felt dazed. His head hurt, his feet hurt, his tongue hurt, and he had no idea what was going on. Waking up to see his own mother in Tezuka's arms was not helping.

"Syuichiro!" His father ran over to hug him. Oishi, though still confused, was touched that his father, usually not one to display strong emotions like all traditional Japanese men, was actually hugging him tearfully.

"Syuichiro!" His grandmother cried and ran over to hug him too. Oishi was touched because his grandmother was on crutches and running anywhere was a great feat for her.

"Syuichiro!" Fuji cried and ran over to hug him. Oishi cringed in fear and tried to run away, discovering that he could already run in the process.

"That Black Jack guy is seriously amazing," Momo said aside to Ryoma, as an embarrassed Oishi came back to his bed and sat down.

"Um… thanks for coming to see me," he said after some hesitation. He still had no idea exactly what had happened to him. He felt like that he had been to some place far, far away, and as he looked at the beaming faces of all the people around him, he knew that no matter where the place was he was definitely glad to be back.

Momo exclaimed happily, "This is not something you should thank us about, senpai!" To express his meaning he whacked him heartily on his shoulder.

"Don't whack him, he might break his arm," Kawamura quickly warned.

"There's a lot more things that Oishi-senpai should thank us about…" Ryoma muttered aside, of course not letting Oishi hear.

Oishi looked gratefully at the flowers, the food, the video games and the Legos that his visitors had brought him. He then looked gratefully at his visitors. There were more relatives than he could count, even his great-grandpa (who was, by the way, already dead, but he just had to be there), and all his friends from the tennis club. Well, most of them.

"Fuji, where's…"

At this moment Eiji, who had gone out to buy junk food, flung open the door. "Oishiiiiiiii!"

Fuji informed him, "Eiji, you have missed the exciting moment of Oishi sitting up and shouting, 'I AM REBORN'!"

"I did? No fair! I've been waiting for this moment for days! I skipped all my classes so I could stay here and he had to choose the few minutes I was gone to wake up… Oishi, shout REBORN! again for me please? I wanna hear!"

"Uh…" Even though Oishi was very moved that Eiji had skipped classes to stay around him, it's still stupid to shout REBORN! again in front of so many people. Including his parents. And his grandparents. And his great-grandparents. It did not help either that from the looks of it his friends and his relatives seemed to be on pretty good terms due to the time they had spent together at the hospital. In fact, Ryoma was playing Super Mario with his grandfather on his father's side, and Kaidoh was cooking with his grandmother on his mother's side.

"Well, you don't have to do it now," Eiji said, seeing that Oishi looked so embarrassed, "you can do it some time later. Hey, when you are ready, we can all go shopping together!"

"Sure," Oishi said, smiling.

So they all went shopping together the next day because they figured if Oishi was well enough to run away from Fuji he would be well enough to walk on streets. As Oishi surveyed his surroundings, he discovered that in the few days that he was unconscious, he had missed quite a lot of news.

"Hey…" As they passed the window of an electric appliance store, Oishi stopped, noticing that one of the televisions on display was having a show called _Kaoru's Cooking Class_, "This guy looks awfully like Kaidoh! He even has a bandanna!"

Kaidoh blushed furiously and pretended to be amused with a passing cat. Not that he wasn't really amused.

"That's impossible," Momo burst into laughter. "That stupid viper's too ugly to appear on television! "

"But he really looks like Kaidoh…" Oishi said, trying to get a closer look, but was dragged away by Eiji.

"Don't watch boring cooking shows, Oishi! Let's go get ice-cream!" Eiji pleaded.

"But… wait! Look, there was a robbery in the bank across our school days ago!" Oishi said, noting the news flash on another television on display. "That was horrible… 50 million. Right across our school!"

"Yes. We all heard about it," Tezuka said without any change of expression. The righteous Tezuka Kunimitsu had become quite a skilled liar these days.

"Oh dear, thank goodness that you guys are all right. If you ran into the robbers and they had guns…"

Eiji waved his worries away, "Come on, Oishi, the chances that we will run into the robbers are extremely low. You worry too much."

"But it happened right across our school…"

"Don't worry. I will never let my teammates do anything dangerous," Tezuka said. He was lying so skillfully that he almost believed himself.

"Yeah, there's nothing to worry about with Tezuka watching over everyone." Oishi smiled. The accident seemed so far away now. It did not matter anyway. All he wanted now was to spend his afternoon happily with his teammates.

"I'm hungry! Let's go get sushi!"

"Fshuu…When have you ever been not hungry, idiot…"

"What did you say I was? Say it again!"

So Kaidoh said it again, "Idiot."

"Want to fight?"

"Fshuu… Good! Let's!"

"Hey…" Oishi sighed, holding his stomach, "please don't fight…"

Oishi loved life that evening. The sky was especially beautiful that evening to him, because of the people he was with when he saw it.

Together, he knew that they would see many more beautiful evenings to come.

**The End.**

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YAY! Finally finished. Thanks for reading! And thanks for all the reviews, they make me so happy. I really, really appreciate them.

forgotten hyoshi: Well, actually there is already a sequel in Chinese. I've already started translating it. I'm glad that you wanted a sequel! Thank you and all the other people who wanted a sequel for wanting a sequel! (That sounded weird...)

terrfomp92: Ahh, it's all right. The longer the better. You guys are interesting. In fact, I think best friends who write things together are always interesting...

shourin: Thank you for liking the last chapter (because it's my favorite) and for noticing that there was "hope" in it (because I was rather worried that nobody would notice). I can't bet with you, because if I do and it doesn't reach 100, you can make it reach 100 by reviewing anonymously, and I will lose the bet. :D Thank you for understanding what we wanted to express perfectly!

Anyway, thank you mysticLegend11 for beta-ing for me, I hope my grammar has improved a little! (I'll need it, I am hoping to study abroad or something in the future.) And thank you again everyone for reading!


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